What an amazing contrast. Here I am in Bayreuth, Bavaria, to see Richard Wagner’s monumental Ring Cycle, probably the greatest artistic achievement of mankind while, outside, the world is tearing itself apart. From Charlottesville to San Francisco, the United States dismembers its statues and erases its history; in Australia we disfigure the monuments to our own discovery and national pride and our local councils denigrate Australia Day; in Canada, a campaign is underway to erase all traces of its first Prime Minister, Sir John Macdonald because, as a Liberal-Conservative, he must have been a racist; and most of Europe seems...